The Return of the Herd

The Return of the Herd is one of six in 1565 incurred the Seasons Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The 117 × 159 cm oil painting on wood represents the autumn is ( October and November). The venue is the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna ( Hall 10, GG 1018).

The painting

The content and design

From an elevated position, the viewer looks at shepherds taking long palings a herd of cattle in a village. Down in the valley flows a river and mountains in the background rise to. Foreground and background are dark, the river in the valley, however, lies in the sun. The trees are bare or shortly before throw their leaves and draw storm clouds on the sky. Near the center is a bird net to see and behind it in the middle ground a gallows gallows hill and erected wheels. There and on the opposite side of the river, the vineyards have been harvested or it finds the gleaning instead. The striking white cow in the foreground increases as Repoussoirmotiv the depth effect.

Motif

Bruegel shows in all his years time images are not real places, but composed of different elements overlook landscapes. This image differs from the others in so far as the hilly river landscape with herd of cattle may be implied by the Flemish calendar pictures or practice. Bruegel took here obviously borrowed from the alpine cattle industry. Also viticulture was little to no spread in the north, though popular motif in books of hours. It is conceivable that the image was intended as a complement opposite a lost spring image with cattle herd.

History and classification

For Bruegel's time, there were not four but six seasons in the Netherlands: early spring, spring, early summer, mid-summer, autumn and winter. In 1565 made ​​on behalf of the Dutch art collector Niclaes Jonghelinck, got the number already in 1594 as a gift for Archduke Ernst in Habsburg possession. Two more pictures The Hunters in the Snow (Winter) and The Gloomy Day ( early spring ) belong to the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. The hay harvest ( early summer) is located in the Palais Lobkowitz in the Prague Castle and the grain harvest ( mid-summer ) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The spring image is lost → Pieter Bruegel the Elder ( The pictures of the seasons ).